With more than 30 people killed in a shoot-out between miners at Lonmin mine in Marikana, Rustenburg, questions are being asked about the role of unions. The miners were for the most part leaderless.

Meanwhile Congress of South African Trade Unions, the country's biggest union federation and important alliance member, is at a crossroads.

As it prepares for its conference next month the union body is struggling with factional battles, which reflect the ANC's own conflict ahead of elections in December where ANC president and head of state Jacob Zuma will be up for re-election to lead the party.

This week Tabane wrote Cosatu's NUM must ask itself how it has lost control of the mineworkers and ceded ts majority to an even more disorganised unit.

M&G readers have shown huge interest in the story and we want to give you an opportunity to get involved in the discussion.

Verashni Pillay will host a live video chat with the M&G's Tabane, posing your questions to him on Friday August 17 at 12pm. Go here to send us your question OR vote on an existing question, and Pillay will put it to Tabane. We will also take your tweets sent to @mailandguardian in real time. You can watch the video on this link when it happens, and afterwards.

You can also join us via video for the live chat using Google Hangouts – a technology similar to that of Skype. To do so all you need is:

A computer; a webcam, audio and mic facilities (standard on most laptops); and a reasonably good internet connection.